I have a big post scheduled for tomorrow (first 52 Block Pattern) so I’m going to post one of my goals today. This is the goal I’m making for the 2014 A Lovely Year of Finishes January party. I have a bunch of other projects planned as well (Project QUILTING starts) but this is something ‘extra’ that I really want to get checked off my ‘to-do’ list.

In January I would like to finish the 8 remaining blocks of Bungalow Quilting and Yarn’s 2013 Paper Piecing Fairy Tale Block of the Month Quilt Along. Wish me luck!!! I can’t wait to see what everyone else is working on in January!

I sewed on 25 little pockets, appliqued on a sock monkey santa and his reindeer and made a stuffed little santa to move around each day. ‘Merry Christmas’ was Free Motion Quilted onto the top. I finished and she loved it!

Other exciting news – A Lovely Year of Finishes is going to happen again in 2014!!! Woot! I love this! It really keeps me on task and keeps me sewing! One thing I have to change is I can only put up one goal each month..I usually have 5 to 10. Oops! It’s still going to be TONS of fun and I can’t wait to see what everyone is working on and completes in 2014!

Even though I had made just one goal for finishes I did manage to finish a few other things…

December has been full of some great family making memories. Instead of breaking these photo’s up into five posts over the next three days…I’m ripping the Band-Aid and showing them all to you now. Be prepared for LOTS of pictures!

The month started out with a sick Cedi. So sick we had to postpone her birthday party. She recovered pretty quickly leaving a sick Capri in her wake. Capri not only had the stomach flu but she ended up getting strep throat on top of that. To help Capri’s mind off of feeling so horrible…we made this fun foam gingerbread house (from a kit).

The next big event on our list was…dinner with Santa at the Rio fire station. Pip was not a huge fan.

Cedi waited an extra 6 days for her first ever birthday party…but I’m pretty sure it was worth the wait.

Most of the girls we invited could still make it even with the date change…Cedi was thrilled!

Pinterest saved the day! I’ve never had kids over let alone a bunch of them all at once for a birthday party! First game – musical presents! I wrapped up seven little door prize gifts seven times. When the music starts you start passing the presents around in the circle. When the music stops, unwrap one layer of wrapping. Continue to do this until you finally see what’s inside! Whatever is in your hand for the final unwrapping you get to take home! The girls had a really good time with this. My favorite part was after the game they decided on their own that the next game would be ‘clean up the wrapping paper’! LOVE!Again…thanks to pinterest our family has discovered the joy of cake waffles. So easy – make a cake batter like normal. Instead of putting it in a cake pan, pour it into your waffle griddle. Before you know – you have cake waffles!!! The girls chose to top their waffle with frosting, ice cream, strawberries AND sprinkles. Oh – and yes – Cedi turned SEVEN not six – I have no idea why I only put six candles on her ‘cake’ and I didn’t notice it until I was editing the picture! oops!Next up ‘Spin the Bottle’! Nope – not that game! In the seven year old version of ‘Spin the Bottle’ you get a bunch of nail polish and put it in a circle. Each girl spins the nail polish bottle in the middle and whatever the cap points to is the color they put on their finger. You do this for all ten fingers for each girls. Not only do the girls love it – it eats up a lot of time AND with seven girls by the time I got to the next color the first was dry = PERFECT!!! Thanks AGAIN pinterest! Cedi had a great time at her first ever birthday party and I’m pretty sure her guests’ did as well!Next up – Christmas pageant at Church!!! Cedi was an adorable little sheep! She was SO excited! “Mama! Mama! I can’t believe it! I’m actually in a REAL Play!!! I get to be a sheep!!!!”The pageant was adorable! Cedi had a great time and her sisters had fun watching her. Here she is after the play when they allowed pictures…Owen’s in front of her. The little boy she has a crush on.Grandma and Grandpa Van made the drive to Poynette too to see the show! Cedi was so proud!!!Yup – this is all still happening in December. The girls were lucky and not only saw Santa for dinner – they also saw Santa and Mrs. Klaus at breakfast!

And after all those fun events we started the ‘Week of Christmas'ish. We had a bunch of different Christmas celebrations and get-together’s to go to. We managed to fit them all in just six days. I know it sounds a bit nuts but I’m a huge fan of tradition and if I can make it work – I’m going to!The sisters! These three little girls received many generous gifts from many folks who love them. In the next few days they’ll be writing out their proper thank you notes but I can just tell you – they really, truly appreciate everything they got. They’ve been playing their little hearts out for days with no end of boredom in sight. Not only did they get some amazing gifts but they were able to spend some quality time with friends and family they love to spend time with. I love seeing my kids interacting with others, making them smile and laugh and helping show us adults, why Christmas can be such a magical time.

Our new little fisherwomen… and fashionista. I’m pretty sure Capri loved her lip gloss from Santa, Pip her new ‘mingo’, and Cedi her lego set… And the girls all love their new car that their cousins gave them! It worked really well in the snow too!One of the most exciting gifts I gave this year was my brother’s quilt. It’s been ‘year’s’ in the making and I finally made it, finished it and gave it to him. I’m pretty sure he loved it!

Last but not least…Papa had picked Pip. I think of everyone Papa could pick Pip was the hardest to come up with an idea for. Papa is very good at building things but Pip’s not quite at the age of using things that Papa builds. He even surprised me with what he came up with for her.

This year Pip really got into the ‘opening presents’ thing. It was so fun to watch her and she opened her gifts!

A puzzle!!! What a perfect idea! It’s a smiley face too if you look close. Papa made her a very special puzzle…I did hear the big girls helped a little with the painting of the puzzle.

It was the best gift Pip could have gotten! She’s put it together over and over and over again already. Definitely an A+ for Papa on Creativity and Thoughtfulness. Just when you think they can’t get any cuter…

I’m working my way through sharing with you all the handmade gifts my little family gifted each other with this Holiday Season.

Pip picked Mercedi -

Mercedi picked Mom –

Mom picked Capri.

Capri picked Papa –

Papa picked Pip.

Now it’s time to share with you what I made for Capri. At first, I thought Capri would be easy – she loves making things! But just because she loves to make things doesn’t mean she’s easy. It made it a little bit tougher because I had to make something that she wouldn’t make herself or want to have made for herself.

I found this great Sock Monkey Advent Calendar Panel in my stash and knew I found the perfect thing. She would be able to use it year after year and would have lots of fun moving the monkey from day to day counting down to Christmas.

On the top I free motion quilted ‘Merry Christmas’.

It’s not very obvious but I used a green and blue Christmas bird fabric to patchwork each of the squares that the sock monkey numbers would go on. I think the subtlety of this is just fine since there’s already a lot going on with the sock monkey’s. By patchworking the base it also helped me more evenly space each pocket without spending too much time doing so. There was no 25 so I made my own pocket for that. In the picture above you can also see the little stuffed Sock Monkey Santa that gets moved each day.

It was a hit! Capri is still sleeping with it and can’t wait to start the countdown from the beginning next December!

I hope you're as excited about these fun weekly block tutorials – tradition with a twist – as I am!

You’re probably wondering what fabrics you should be pulling from your stash to complete these blocks. Well…since some of these blocks may be made into pillows…some may be grouped together to make a smaller medallion quilt … use a few for a table runner or two…OR you could even put them all together into one use sampler – your fabric choices are pretty much endless.

I know…not much help. Since these blocks are going to be tradition blocks that you ‘see’ something in…be it a house, a tree, a cat, a mouse or even a whale…I feel that more ‘solid reading’ fabrics would work well. Now, they don’t all have to be solid but I do think that will help other’s ‘see’ the special twist we’re trying to highlight.

Here are the fabrics I pulled initially for my blocks. I’m sure I’ll add to this throughout the year and I’m also sure I won’t use everything I pulled. But it a great place to start.

Growing up my mom collected Santa’s. She has shelves full of them that she puts out every Christmas and it’s become a tradition to see them all in their glory standing together. I’ve known other people to collect snowmen. Well, I decided to collect Christmas trees. I have a pretty decent collection started but each year I tend to get one or two to add to my collection.

Cedi was at her Grandma Lapacek’s for a long weekend and she made my gift there.

Using a foam tree base, Grandma let Cedi at her beads and buttons and hot glue and this is what she came up with! I love all the color and the thought that Cedi put into it and it’s going to be a priceless addition to my Christmas tree collection!

Capri had picked her Papa’s name to make a gift for. She knew right away what she was going to do and it was going to require Grandma Lapacek’s help as well.

She got off the bus at Grandma’s house one night after school just before Christmas time and came home with his gift. She decided it would be best to give it to him early so they would be ‘fresh’.

That’s right – she made Pap his favorite…a big batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies!

Our family of five each drew a name to find out who we should make a gift for this holiday season. Here’s what happened.

Pip picked Mercedi.

Mercedi picked Mom.

Mom picked Capri.

Capri picked Papa.

Papa picked Pip.

Everyone was really happy with who they got and who had them…we didn’t keep it a secret since we had to know who Pip had anyway (she’s 2). Cedi was really excited until you could see her smile waiver just a little as she realized that all Pip could pretty much do was color in a picture…sort of. She held that smile regardless and insisted she was excited.

I couldn’t just let Pip color a picture for Cedi so instead we did a little bit of ‘15 minutes of play’ together. I let her at one of my scrap bins and she picked the fabrics she wanted me to sew together. Before we knew it – we had the outside portion of a kindle case put together for Cedi! She then picked out the two fabrics for the insides of the bag and hung out patiently while I did the manual labor.

Voila! We had a fun new case/bag for Cedi’s kindle! Just full of Pip’s love! AND it was really fun for me to sew and create with Pip at my side! To top it off – Cedi loved it!!!

I hope you are all really excited about the upcoming season 5 of Project QUILTING! I know that I am! If you’re not for some reason…hopefully all these prizes I’m about to announce will get you more excited.

As more prizes are donated I’ll be updating this list so be sure to check back often!

Randomly Drawn Grand Prize.

Every time you complete a Project QUILTING Challenge per the guidelines you’re name will be added to the drawing for the Grand Prize. If you complete every challenge (all 6) you will get a bonus entry (maximum number of times your name will be in the drawing…7).

*some posts on this blog contain affiliate links to vendors such as Amazon - at no additional cost to you. The small amount of affiliate income I earn allows me to bring you free patterns and DIY tutorials, as well as pay for domain fees. For more information, please visit my Disclosure Statement and Advertising Policies page.